Circle Theme Examples

Restorative Justice

• Indigenous Roots of Circle
• Medicine Wheel Work
• Decolonize the Mind
• RJ versus Criminal Justice versus Transformative, or Community Justice
• How to hold a circle

Power of Storytelling

You Can’t Fear Someone Whose Story You Know.

• Reentry Stories (Ensure that folks feel empowered, not exploited)
• Survival Stories (Ensure that folks feel empowered, not exploited)
• Childhood Stories
• Sharing from various ages/eras each week
• What went right in your childhood?
• Stories about RJ concepts- (What was one time you felt or experienced: justice, hope, freedom, belonging, safe, ‘at home’?)
• Tree of Life Prompts
• Song of the Soul
• Ancestor Stories

Relationships 

Restoration/Healing/​Mending

• Accountability-What is Accountability?
• Times I’ve done Harm/Times I’ve been Harmed; Needs resulting from Harm
• Maori Story and Human Sculptures
• Apologies/forgiveness
• Healing: what promotes healing?
• Support Circle

Identity

Power/Privilege/Oppression

• Race/Class/Gender: Who is in the circle?
• Ability, Illness, Aging, Mortality 
• Political Autobiography Circle
• Freedom-(Times I felt free, define freedom)
• Re Entry- "What could the community do to support you when you were coming home?" 
• Discuss Reentry Resources
• Storytelling and what psychological/emotional needs people have/had after coming home

Wondering About the Universe ‍

• Imagining a new/better world (consider using the resources that we currently put toward prison/punishment/etc)
• Nature Circles
• Animals
• Four elements, Four seasons
• What have you learned from Trees?
• What do you wonder about? 

Interconnectedness

• The Web of Life (Ball of yarn exercise)
• Chaos Exercise 
• Trauma Healing/Somatic Work
• How Relationships Heal Trauma
• Connection between humans and earth/other living things: nature, trees, animals
• Council of All Beings-Joanna Macy
• Deep Time Exercise-Joanna Macy
• Vulnerability as Interdependence —  “vulnerability means showing your needs”  What are you running from? What are you running toward?

Current Events

• Voting Rights
• Women's Rights
• LGBT Rights
• Transgender Rights
• Systemic Racism
• Religious Freedom
• Abuse By Police
• White Privilege
• Abolition

Core Self and Emotional Literacy

• Johari’s Window. How you want to be seen/How others see you/How you see yourself
• Self Care/Self Love (define self love; describe a person who demonstrates self love)
• Self Awareness
• Mask Exercise: 3 things you show/3 things you do not show
• Importance of uncomfortable feelings
• In what ways do we treat ourselves unfairly?

Fun/Art/Sculpture/Roleplay

• ‘I am From’ poem
• Tattoos and Scars
• Masks
• Mosaic, collage, etc!

Non-Western Spiritual and Cultural Practices

(only if your participants are open to it)

• Buddhist Meditation
• Explore the Divine Feminine/Divine Masculine
• Dia de los Muertos
• Grief and Loss circle
• Elm Dance 

‍